I
inhaled The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape
9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss – and I have
put his other books on my wish list.
To look at the title, you might think it pure fancy or
illegal, but it’s not.
Ferriss argues that it is much more important to do what
is meaningful to you than to fill a seat from nine to five. That sounds reasonable to me.
The sections of the book spell D-E-A-L.
Definition: what
do you really want to do? What is meaningful
to you? What would you want to do if you
had no restrictions or limitations on you?
(Legal things, of course.) You must
have a solid idea of what you want and how to get there fulfilling the meaning
you seek.
Elimination: what
don’t you need? What takes you away from
is meaningful? Excess stuff – excess nuances
– anything that is not necessary in achieving what is meaningful for you should
be eliminated – whether people, clothes, or your current job.
Automation: in the
long run – and even in the short run – paying someone else to do what you don’t
want or need to do will increase your ability to achieve what is meaningful for
you. Spend your time and effort only on
what you enjoy doing on the way to your meaningful goal.
Liberation:
go. Work from home, from another
country, take min-retirements.
Ferriss includes many examples and websites to check out. The book concludes with a selection of his
best blog posts and testimonials of those who followed through with what he explains.
Now, you may love your job. I do.
But there are things you wish you didn’t have to do, right? I know there are for me. See if someone else will do them to allow you
to fulfill your call. Set short term
goals and get to them now.
I am also setting long term goals which begin now,
certainly, but things I want to achieve.
I love my job, but there are other things I would like to achieve as
well. And, though I don’t have much
interest in going to other countries, I would like to take more vacations at
different times of the year to be in the place that I find most beneficial to
my achieving meaning.
Even if you don’t follow everything he says – he is not
in favor of reading a lot – I disagree – taking time to figure out what is
meaningful and what things would be better out of your life or handled by
someone else is a worthwhile activity.
[This review appears on my blog,
Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com.]
